


It's Not How You Talk, It's How You Listen

by themus



Category: The OC
Genre: Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Light Angst, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-17
Updated: 2006-10-17
Packaged: 2019-02-23 05:59:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13183836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themus/pseuds/themus
Summary: A short AU one-shot set during The Dawn Patrol.  Kirsten-Ryan bonding on an aeroplane.





	It's Not How You Talk, It's How You Listen

 

 

  
_'If you want me to fly to Albuquerque with you . . .'_ (3.21 - The Dawn Patrol)

  
  
Ryan has smilingly muscled Kirsten aside to put the bags in the overhead storage, so she takes her seat – moving the blanket, pillow, bottle of water, headphones and complimentary amenity kit in the process - and fiddling with the seat pitch until it's comfortable.

A final heavy clunk signals the end of Ryan's job and he slaps the overhead compartment as he throws her a quick, nervous smile.

“Thanks for coming with me,” he says, and the way he bites his lip and looks away reminds Kirsten of his first awkward months with them. It hurts her that his mother has that effect on him by mere mention, and even more so because she was the one who was stupid enough to mention it this time. But she returns his smile and he lets her catch his eyes again, so she knows he isn't completely lost. Not yet.

“Are you going to sit down?” Kirsten asks when Ryan remains standing in the aisle, one hand pressed against the storage above his head still. He laughs a little and his mouth opens and shuts a few times as he struggles for words, telling her that somehow she's asked a difficult question.

“Um, I was just thinking, could we maybe swap seats? If you don't mind.”

Kirsten looks from her seat to his, trying to figure the difference. The leg-room is the same – which is plenty here in first class - the only difference is that her seat is on the aisle, and his seat is by the window. She takes a sharp breath, amazed at her own stupidity. “Oh, I'm sorry, Ryan. I don't know why I didn't think of that.” She shakes her head, a little embarrassed, and quickly moves to the window seat, once again shuffling everything so that she can sit, before handing Ryan's things back to him as he gets settled in.

Ryan folds his blanket and leaves it with the pillow, balanced on the arm of the seat – headphones and amenity kit stacked on top. Then he tries the seatbelt, adjusts it a couple of times until it's perfect, and unfastens it again, leaving the ends dangling down the seat where he can get at them quickly once the light goes on.

Kirsten openly watches him, smiling.

“What is it?” he asks when he catches her looking. He glances from her to his seat as if there's something embarrassing there that she's about to point out.

“You.”

“Huh?”

“You're so . . . methodical,” Kirsten tells him, pointing to the careful pile he's created, and then to his seatbelt. Hers is still fastened behind her, her pillow and blanket on the recently hoovered floor, the amenity kit unzipped and rifled through. Not that Ryan's organisation is a surprise any more, but sometimes the way he does things, unlike, say Seth – who would have emptied the kit searching for something good like sweets or comics, or her father, who would mostly likely have complained about the thickness of the blanket – just reminds her of how different Ryan is, how special he is, and how glad Kirsten is that Sandy brought him into their home.

Ryan is looking at her now with one eyebrow raised, an expression she noticed that first weekend when he interacted with Seth, just a little quirk that made plain Ryan's wary confusion.

“Uh, sorry?” he ventures, smiling so that Kirsten knows he's not upset and she chuckles.

“You don't have to be sorry, Ryan, it was just an observation. I've always liked how methodical you are.”

His smile widens and he dips his head, a little embarrassed at the open praise, as usual.

“I'm sorry about the window thing,” Kirsten says suddenly, trying to take the pressure off him. “I don't know why I didn't think of it. You're okay flying, though, right? I mean you went to Portland and then Miami last year.”

“Yeah,” Ryan reassures quickly. “Yeah, it's fine, just as long as I don't have to watch,” he says with a nervous laugh. “I had a window seat when I went to Portland, actually.”

Kirsten straightens in her seat, surprised. “Really? I was sure Sandy booked you an aisle seat.” She remembers specifically reminding Sandy to book an aisle seat, and makes a mental note to get him to apologise when they get home.

Ryan nods and rubs a hand across the knee of his jeans. “He did. But the kid next to me wasn't too happy about flying either and he wanted the aisle seat.”

Kirsten bites her lip, trying not to let her smile break out. And of course Ryan didn't tell anyone, or request a new seat. He probably spent the whole flight making the kid feel better about it.

As Ryan starts fiddling with some of the mysterious features of his seat, Kirsten adjusts her seatbelt and the air-conditioning unit above her. It isn't long until the engines start rumbling and the flight attendants take their places to go through the emergency procedures. Shortly after that the seatbelt sign is lit and they're coasting up the runway.

Kirsten looks out the window to watch the tarmac of the runway melting under them at the speed, and when she looks back Ryan is sitting straight in his chair, eyes closed, hands holding onto the armrests. He doesn't look tense and his breathing is normal, and Kirsten gets that he just needs to shut his eyes and pretend this part isn't happening. She reaches over and squeezes his hand and in return his eyes slit open.

“I'm okay,” he says, sounding like he actually he is.

“I know,” Kirsten tells him, “I just wanted to give you this.” She presses a hard candy into his hand and then unwraps one herself, popping it into her mouth. He looks down at it in surprise. “For the take-off,” she says, sucking on hers. The air pressure is building now as the craft pitches up at a greater rate, and suddenly she can't feel the rumble of the ground underneath the wheels, and knows that they're airborne. Her head feels full, as if someone has crammed cotton in through her ears, and it's buzzing too. She swallows around the candy, and the pressure eases just a little. Ryan has followed suit by now and is sitting still again, eyes closed, resting easily in his seat.

When the plane levels out a bit, Kirsten peeks out the window again, fascinated by the sight of Orange County so small beneath them. The San Gabriel Mountains are visible ahead on her side of the plane, closing L.A., Chino and Newport together in a tight natural dragnet. She's always reminded of how small her world is when she gets on a plane.

“You know,” Ryan speaks suddenly, and she looks over to find him eyeing her with amused suspicion. “The last time someone tried to bribe me with candy was when I was six, and Trey wanted me to stop crying because he broke my Raphael action figure.”

Kirsten has to think for a second, cross-referencing the name with the TV shows Seth watched at that age. “Raphael?” she questions, when she remembers, “I'd have you pegged as more of a Donatello man. Maybe Leonardo.”

“Well, it was Trey's really, but you know, he'd grown out of it.”

The conversation in the cabin is low, a quiet background hum which almost matches that of the engine and the air-conditioning, and it almost feels like it's just them.

“At ten, of course,” Kirsten responds. She tries to picture Trey at that age, probably annoyed by the younger brother that likely doted on him, and knowing the stubbornness of boys at that age - always so eager to be grown up - can well imagine him swearing off childish toys like that once Ryan showed an interest in them.

“Did it work?” Kirsten doesn't know why Ryan suddenly brought up that subject, since he very rarely mentions life in Chino, even in passing, and she doesn't want to let it drop.

Ryan glances over at her. “Uh, yeah, it did, except I must have told Theresa, and she must have told her mom because the next time Trey went over there he got an earful.” Ryan grins, wide and unguarded. “She made him feel so bad that he went out and bought me a new one.”

“Trey?” Kirsten questions in surprise.

“Trey,” he assures, nodding once. “It wasn't all bad,” he adds, then rolls his head away. “Not that I want to know where he got the money for it, since we never got allowance.”

The Captain comes over the speaker then to tell them the plane is cruising comfortably at 35,000 feet. Kirsten notices Ryan's wince at that information.

“I'm so glad I'm not looking,” he breathes, keeping his face firmly away from the direction of the window, instead focusing on the back of the seat in front of him.

It's not long before the flight attendant comes round with the drinks trolley. She smiles sweetly at Ryan as she asks if he wants anything, her smile only widening when he declines, and Kirsten does the same with a small wave of her hand. She is young, the flight attendant, her red-tinted black hair pulled back tightly into the regulation bun. Her name tag reads 'Laura', and Kirsten can't help but notice Ryan staring at it as she leans down to move a few things on the bottom shelf of the cart before she stands, straightening her skirt, and tugs it off again towards the front of the cabin.

Kirsten smiles to herself and turns to the window, trying to hide it behind a hand as she watches the clouds below the plane. They spark bright gold from the sun, bouncing the light back up at the plane and catching the underside of the wings. In patches the fluffy cloud is thinner, showing patches of green and brown far below. Meanwhile they are flying into pure azure blue, all the colours separated by the layer of cloud, a barrier between earth and sky.

She is struck by a thought suddenly and turns back to Ryan who is still staring doggedly at the back of the seat in front. Every so often his eyes flick to the aisle, watching the flight attendant's progress through the cabin. She must catch his eye, because Ryan's flick aside and he rubs his leg with one hand – a gesture he has that Kirsten has long since recognised as a way of pretending occupation while he gets his thoughts together. A coy little action in this case. Seth has never been this proficient with girls – he's always been babbling and nervous when it comes to social situations, noise his natural reaction where Ryan's is silence. It breaks Kirsten's heart when she considers why Ryan is that way. She often wonders if he'd be so reticent if he hadn't grown up the way he had.

Ryan seems properly relaxed for the first time since he stepped on the plane, actually since Kirsten broached the subject of inviting his mother to graduation, and she doesn't want to ruin it, so she drops the thought that came to her and picks up on an easier subject.

“She seems nice,” she says instead, nodding at the flight attendant, Laura, who is now working her way back down the other aisle. Kirsten catches her glancing over now, although Ryan pretends he doesn't see her, concentrating on the arm of his chair and flicking embarrassed glances at Kirsten.

“Uh, yeah,” he answers, making it clear that he doesn't know how to talk about this subject.

“It's fine,” she tries to assure him, “I won't be all mother-y.”

Ryan throws her another look – a single sceptic expression with enough uptilt at the corner of his mouth that she can understand what he means. She may not be his mother, but he's not about to start flirting with random girls right in front of her.

Well, Kirsten resolves to herself, maybe she'll need to use the bathroom at a few strategic points during the journey.

Laura disappears to the cabin behind them and Ryan picks up the in-flight magazine, flipping through the pages of articles on wine-growing and past the advertisements for the duty-free perfumes available on the international flights.

“What were you going to say?” Ryan asks, once he's buried in a short editorial about clocks.

“What was I going to say when?”

“You were looking way too serious back there for a conversation about the flight attendant,” he observes and Kirsten has to curse herself for being so obvious about it. “You had your Atwood Issues game face on,” Ryan adds, closing the magazine on his thumb and looking her straight in the eyes. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

Ryan doesn't look nervous or hesitant and Kirsten suddenly realises that he's volunteering to answer her questions. It seems so strange that he would balk at these confrontations so quickly in their nice, safe Newport mansion, and yet here – in the middle of a cabin full of people, halfway to New Mexico to see his real mother - he's letting her ask him these things. She feels like a child, finally presented with an object she's been yearning for, to find that everyone is watching her to see what she does with it. And it better be something good.

Kirsten takes some time to consider the best way to phrase the question, while Ryan just watches her patiently, waiting to see what she's going to throw at him.

“I was wondering how you felt about my drinking problem,” she says finally, opting for the direct approach. “We never really talked about it beyond what you said at my intervention. And I never really thanked you for that, either, Ryan.” Kirsten reaches a hand over to close on just briefly. “I know that must have been very difficult for you.”

And then she waits, letting the thoughts gather, giving Ryan a chance to figure out his feelings and frame a response.

It takes a while, his blue eyes dropping again while he considers it. Kirsten is kicking herself that they never broached this subject before. It should have been something that she and Sandy sat down to discuss with the kids, but she had been so consumed with surviving reality again, and Sandy had been so busy with the Newport Group that it had just never happened. There are a lot of things which fall into that category – such as Theresa losing the baby, or Lindsay leaving, or Johnny dying – and Kirsten vows to go home and talk to Sandy about them, and to schedule in some time just with Ryan to talk about that stuff.

Because the problem has always been that they don't know how to handle Ryan. He's always been so good at locking the feelings away and fooling himself into thinking that he can forget all about them, and they have always just played along - giving Ryan space and time to work things out – and too often they forgot how hurt Ryan was too, and the intention to deal with the issues dropped along the way. It isn't until something happens, until Ryan's emotions surface again, that Kirsten is so often struck by how young and overwhelmed he seems, and the sheer crushing weight of emotional baggage that he carries around with him.

“I'm just glad that you got help,” Ryan says softly, jerking Kirsten back to the issue at hand. “You've changed, which is something my mom could never do.”

One thing at a time, she tells herself. They can only deal with one thing at a time.

“I don't ever want to be in that place again,” she admits, “and I will do everything in my power to make sure I don't end up there. I don't intend to fail. You guys deserve a sober mother. Sandy deserves a sober wife. I deserve better than being dependent on that stuff. And your mom, she's doing better now, too.”

“Yeah?” Ryan asks, his face showing emotion again, the way it had the night before – catapulting despair and bitter weariness at her. “What's she at, a month? If she is, she's beating her record.”

“I honestly don't know, Ryan,” Kirsten replies, catching a tense hand in hers again, and this time not letting go. “But whatever happens, whatever we find, we'll handle it.”

Ryan sighs and the shutters come back down, slamming the door on his insecurities. He looks so calm and collected that Kirsten might think she's imagining it if she hasn't seen it all before. This time he's not going to get away with it, though. This time she's going to make sure she addresses it properly. But right now Ryan has enough to deal with going to see his mother, so Kirsten files the information away for discussing when they get back home. She lets go of Ryan's hand and he moves it to scratch nervously at his other wrist, giving her a weak smile in the process. She takes a sip from her bottle of water and Ryan delves back into the magazine.

After another half hour or so, Kirsten has succumbed to boredom and scanned through her magazine too, dropping it back into the seat pocket in disgust not long afterwards. Ryan has finished digesting any vaguely entertaining information from his and has replaced it too.

“You know, Seth always loved his Michaelangelo,” Kirsten starts, anxious for conversation. Ryan looks at her with interest despite the inauspicious beginnings, folding his hands across his stomach. “Sandy bought it for him when he was eight because Michaelangelo was the surfer, of course, and back then Sandy was really starting to get into it, with our house in Newport being so close to the beach. Seth loved it because Michaelangelo also had a skateboard. He started to learn that year because of it, and because I wouldn't let him surf until he was older. By the time he was old enough he didn't want to any more, much to Sandy's disgust.” Kirsten laughs at that, remembering the ridiculous arguments they'd had over it and Ryan grins at her. “Anyway, his got destroyed too.”

“Yeah? What did he do, take it skateboarding with him?” Ryan ventures with an amused snort. Kirsten is amazed that he seems so interested in their lives before he met them, but he always seems to hang on everything she says. He's always been respectful like that. She used to worry that it was all respect and nothing else – that he was hiding his feelings in favour of not offending or upsetting her. It wasn't until he came back after the summer in Chino that she realised that somewhere along the line it had become real feeling – a deep-seated awe that she could be the mother he'd always wanted, and that she wanted him too. It changed again over the next summer, after her trip to rehab. Now Ryan looks at her like she's human, and approachable, but still worthy of respect – something she thinks she has long lost the right to, along with her dignity.

“I don't even know why I'm telling you this story,” she admits, shaking her head.

“What did he do?” Ryan prompts again, and it seems to be less out of an interest in the story than out of a desire just to talk to her – something they have little time for in their hectic lives. If she gets any time with Ryan at all, Seth is usually there.

“Well,” Kirsten continues, satisfied that she's not boring the stuffing out of him, “Seth was really excited about Halloween that year, I don't know why, and he got it into his head that he and Michaelangelo were going as Commandos, and needed some training to get into the role. So he hid the thing in the grass behind the poolhouse. But Sandy decided to mow the lawn that week,” she says, pausing when Ryan winces and shakes his head. “Right. There were pieces of turtle everywhere and Sandy had to go out and buy a new lawnmower blade. Seth was absolutely devastated. He cried for a week. And then he insisted that we find all the pieces and bury the thing with full honours, befitting a hero who died in the line of duty.”

Ryan laughs and shakes his head again. “Seth was a weird kid.”

“Was?” Kirsten questions, causing Ryan to smirk. “Did you ever get into Halloween?” she asks, hoping that it won't bring the same response as Chrismukkah did that first year. Ryan doesn't tense up or stop laughing, and she breathes a little sigh of relief.

“Yeah, Trey and me went trick or treating most years, actually.”

Kirsten tries to picture a young Ryan in a Halloween costume. She wishes that she knew these things about him – just the little growing-up stuff that Dawn probably missed even while she was there – like what Ryan looked like all dressed up. “What did you go as?” she asks, needing more information to complete the picture in her mind's eye.

“A ghost,” Ryan admits happily, “I always went as a ghost. I only needed a sheet for it, and as long as I didn't get it too dirty, Mom didn't mind. Of course I couldn't cut holes in it, so I couldn't see very well, but if it works, why change it, right?” Ryan shrugs. “Trey always had to be something different, every year. He used to save up for months before hand so he could get the best costume from the store – a pirate, GI, whatever. He'd go and pick which one he wanted and then he'd steal kids' lunch money and spare change from Mom's purse until he had enough.”

“And you did that every year?” Kirsten questions, bypassing the little acknowledgement of his brother's petty crimes.

“Yeah, up until I was ten anyway. That year we didn't get down the store until the night before, and by then everything good had sold out, so Trey decided that he didn't want to do Halloween. So he spent all the money on beer instead and took me to the park to get me drunk. I hated it,” Ryan says bluntly, when he recognises Kirsten's shock, “I got really sick, threw up all over the place, and then the cops found us and took us home.”

Ryan isn't smiling any more and Kirsten begins to think that she made a major mistake bringing up this subject.

“Did you get into a lot of trouble?” she asks, mainly because she just can't help herself, because sometimes she just feels like she needs to hear these things. Her imagination always supplies plenty of possibilities, anyway.

Ryan just shakes his head no. “Mom had just been fired, and the latest new guy had walked out a few weeks before and she'd started on a major bender. By the time the cops got us home she was in a worse state than we were. When she woke up in the morning she didn't remember any of it.”

“But it wasn't all bad,” Kirsten reminds him, repeating his words from earlier.

Ryan gives her a grim smile. “No. But it wasn't all good, either.”

The flight attendant interrupts them then to give them their meals and a few minutes are lost opening up the cardboard packaging and pulling everything out.

Kirsten picks up her plastic fork and pokes at the unappetising chicken and the wilted salad. “I knew I should have made sandwiches. Airline food,” she heaves with disgust as soon as the flight attendant is out of hearing. “Even in first class this stuff is just . . .” she pokes it again.

“Yeah, it's a good thing I got used to your cooking last year,” Ryan deadpans, abandoning the brown vinaigrette altogether.

Kirsten just manages to keep her face straight as she ignores the comment. “It's almost as bad as hospital food.”

“I like hospital food,” Ryan announces brightly, “or at least the stuff they give the patients. It beats hospital cafeteria food. Or my mom's cooking.”

Kirsten decides to leave that last comment well alone, and narrowly avoids asking how many times Ryan has had the pleasure of sampling hospital food. Instead she just pursues the topic along neutral lines. “I've never understood their obsession with potato.”

“Carbohydrate,” Ryan answers, giving up on the chicken and moving onto his chocolate muffin. “It's the fastest way to beef the patients up.”

Kirsten pushes the food aside and stretches out, attempting to get comfortable again as Ryan rescues the muffin from it's plastic wrapping and chews it thoughtfully. The conversation about hospitals seems to have brought on a sudden melancholy, and Kirsten wonders what he's remembering. She wishes that he felt comfortable talking about that kind of stuff, because she and Sandy know so little about what happened to him before he became theirs. Sometimes she thinks of his past like a giant black hole, sucking all the light from his life no matter what he does or where he goes. She wishes he would share just a little, instead of keeping it all bottled up inside.

But he has told her some things today that she had never known before, even if it was obviously trivial, a few less harmful memories picked up off the surface.

Kirsten decides she's going to make a point of spending time alone with Ryan from now on. Then maybe, very slowly, she'll learn some more. She looks over at him and suddenly notices that he's staring at nothing, eyes unfocused, lost in whatever memories were brought up.

Kirsten leans towards him. “Ryan, are you okay?” she asks.

He blinks suddenly, startled by her proximity and takes a moment to catch himself. He still looks a little hazy and lost. “I don't know if I can do this again,” he says quietly, so that Kirsten has to strain to hear him over the constant buzzing of the engines.

“Honey, you can still change your mind. We don't have to go any further than the airport if you don't want to. We can just turn right round and come back, that's fine.”

“But you paid--”

“Doesn't matter,” Kirsten interrupts, turning stern. “I suggested this whole thing because I thought it might be good for you – to see your mom again, to reconnect. But if it's not what you want, if it's just going to be hurtful, we don't have to do it. We could just go shopping instead, visit a museum, the zoo. It doesn't matter.”

Ryan sighs and drops his head back against his seat, staring up at the fan above his seat. “It's just . . . she's done this so many times before. She'll get clean, she'll say it's for good, and then . . . then she'll find some guy and it'll all go to hell. I don't know . . .” his brow furrows and he takes a deep, pained breath, “I don't know if I can take that again.” Ryan lowers his head and looks at her. “But you were right – I need to do this. Just . . . thanks for coming with me.”

The pilot announces their approach into Albuquerque International and the seatbelt signs click on again. Ryan is sat back again, eyes closed, hands on the armrests just as he did for the take-off, and Kirsten gets the impression that he's taking the time to mentally prepare himself for what's coming.

She looks out of the window. Down there somewhere in that sprawling brown mess, Dawn is trying to make a new life for herself, one that she couldn't make with Ryan with her, no matter how hard he tried to help her. Kirsten can't imagine how frightening it must have been, for both of them, to have to start up all over again where everything and everyone is unfamiliar. She realises she's scared too – of what they will find, and how it will affect her new son, the boy that was gifted to her.

Kirsten takes his hand again, squeezes, and feels Ryan squeeze back. “I meant what I said, Ryan. If you change your mind, we don't have to see her. And if you don't, whatever happens, I'll be right there.”

Ryan opens his eyes to nod at her, and she knows that he's understood it, that she's thanking him for letting her be there.

 


End file.
